


Grip

by wheelrs



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Mileven, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 20:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19384564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheelrs/pseuds/wheelrs
Summary: Mike and Eleven face an oncoming battle with the Mind Flayer at the Starcourt Mall, their affection for one another dominating and dictating the crucial moments before chaos.Dedicated to the blender rats, my fav ladies in the world <3





	Grip

They would have been plunged into complete blindness had it not been for the red emergency lights that flicked on as the entire Starcourt Mall abruptly lost electricity. Mike felt the billowing fabric of Eleven’s shirt brushing against his back and briefly noted a distant but powerful sense of comfort settle in his cold, leaden stomach. They stood back to back, eyes coursing rapidly back and forth over the sinister, shadowy red landscape of the mall, which typically glowed an inviting and enthusiastic neon that seemed so foreign now, seconds after it had gone out. Mike tried to ignore the tricks his eyes played. Every darkened door and hallway seemed to come alive with dancing silhouettes of something. He knew it was just his mind sliding into panic, and as hard as he tried to hold it still, to keep an iron grip on reality, it was difficult in this state of fear. He let out a sharp gasp as Dustin broke the silence nearby with a loud, alarmed voice that startled Mike nearly to death, or so it felt.  
  
“I’ll go look for Steve and Jonathan! It’s too dangerous to be split up in the dark,” Dustin said, and immediately set off toward the frozen escalator to try to find the older boys, who had gone to the sporting outlet on the second floor to gather anything that might work as a weapon.  
  
“You can’t! You can’t go off alone, you’ll get yourself killed!” Max shouted after him. There was a silence, heavy with tension at her poor wording. No one wanted to think about dying. It was too real a possibility now. Dustin shrugged, lightening the mood with his typical, persistent levelheadedness.  
  
“Well, then, by all means, join me,” Dustin said, turning back around and mounting the motionless steps. Max waited a moment for anyone to protest or offer a better plan, maybe to help her convince Dustin to stay. But he was already well on his way, and with a reluctant huff, she ran after him.  
  
“El,” Mike said softly, his own voice sounding so far away, “where is it? Can you see it? Can you feel it?”  
  
“It’s everywhere. All around us,” El said.  
  
“What do we do?”  
  
Suddenly El grabbed his wrist, hard. He heard her breath catch. She spoke so that only he could hear. “It moved. Its host—it’s inside. It’s here.”  
El’s demeanor changed instantly. She wheeled around to face Joyce and Lucas, who had been huddled watchfully with Max and Dustin before they had gone upstairs. Joyce looked back at her with a concerned, questioning look,  
  
“What is it, sweetie?” Joyce called out, her voice fearful but firm with protective instinct.  
  
“Go,” El said to them sharply.  
  
Lucas took an involuntary step forward in protest. “Go? El, what if you need help? We need to help you! That’s what we’re here for. We can’t just leave you here to do this alone!”  
  
El shut her eyes tight for a brief moment. Mike glanced at her. He thought she might start to cry and a fresh, hot pain bore a caustic hole in his stomach at the idea. She was still holding his wrist tight. He clung to the pleasant, welcome ache in his bones and numbness in his hand. He focused on these sensations, vaguely certain that they alone were preventing him from collapsing in distress. He shifted closer to El and touched his shoulder to hers in a weak but desperate effort to reassure her. He hoped his touch would say “it’s okay”.  
  
“GO,” El barked with more force, “Now. I need you to trust me.”  
  
Joyce grabbed Lucas’s hand and soothingly urged him away from his friends, telling him that it was okay, they would go check in with Will and Hopper back at the Byers’ house. Lucas relented in dismay as Joyce ushered him gently, though quickly, toward the entrance of the mall. The whole way to the automatic doors, which luckily had been open when the outage struck, Lucas stared at Mike and El, shouting things like, “I’ll wait for you!”, “I’ll be right outside!”, “I won’t go anywhere!”. As his shouts began to fade and the pair exited the building, hopefully to safety, El turned to face Mike. She looked into his eyes with a gaze so heavy with affection, fear, determination, and sadness that he could scarcely bear to meet it.  
  
“You too,” she said quietly, her voice breaking, “go.”  
  
He looked at her wildly and shook his head. “I won’t leave you.”  
  
“Mike—”  
  
“I won’t,” he insisted, grabbing both of her hands gently and holding them to his chest. She was staring at him pleadingly, desperately. He saw her pain but could not appease it. He swallowed a thick, hard lump in his throat. “I’ve—I’ve lost you before. I’m not just going to walk away now and let it happen again, okay? I’m staying.”  
  
She squeezed his hands and Mike promptly released them. He reached up, cradling her soft, small face in his long, bony fingers. He brushed a long strand of hair out of her face, smoothing it down on her head. He was struck now by how _different _this felt. Her hair had grown so long. It framed her face and fell in her eyes and brushed her shoulders. His fingers tingled with the memory of the soft, fuzzy shaven head she’d greeted him with. He was struck with an intense pang of affection, thinking abruptly of how deeply he loved her, and how _long _he’d loved her for. So much had changed since she had been living in his basement, and yet, so much was the same. The thought of separating now, of possibly letting her slip from his life again, the thought of leaving her _alone, _sent an agony through his chest that cinched his breath and iced his lungs.______  
  
“I won’t,” he said again, tipping her face up gently so that her eyes met his. “I _can’t. _”__  
  
El nodded softly. Her eyes glittered in the red light with a fresh glaze of tears, but not one fell. “Okay,” she whispered through a tender, melancholy smile. After a moment that felt very long, she stepped back from him and closed her eyes. Her chin tilted slightly upward. She was sensing. Searching.  
  
Suddenly, loud sounds began to erupt from various places in the mall. Mike spun around, following the deafening roar of shattering glass, toppling shelves, and, if he understood correctly, the wind whipping outside. A chilling rush of air swept through the mall entrance and blew Mike’s hair into a curly frenzy. It seemed, somehow not to touch El. She stood perfectly still, save for her eyes oscillating rapidly behind their lids. The noise around them was becoming maddeningly loud, and Mike fought an instinctual urge to cover his ears with his hands. He helplessly watched as a small trickle of dark blood began to drip from her nose. She was finding the monster and drawing him out. Bringing him forth. Suddenly, he desperately wanted to grab her hand, to wrench her from her trance and take off in the direction of the parking lot. They could go anywhere. Anywhere in the world. Together. They’d be safe. They could go anywhere.  
  
“ _SAVE HER, _” his guts screamed, “ _PROTECT HER. RUN. _”____  
  
The cacophony then came to a nauseously abrupt, and complete, stop. Mike shook the messy mop of hair from his face and followed Eleven’s hard, savagely cold gaze down a dark corridor ahead of them. A shape began to form at the shadows’ edge, a hulking, hideous figure that only slightly resembled its original form. But there it was, the monster, using a heinously grotesque version of Billy Hargrove as its vessel, approaching them haggardly. Billy limped in their direction. Its weakened state was a ruse, an illusion. Mike knew that the monster inside was a strong and powerful as ever. It was trying to trick them. It was a matter of moments before it would lunge.  
  
El could sense it too, the monster’s imminent attack at any moment. Mike watched as she lifted her hand quickly, and he knew in an instant what she was doing. She was protecting him. Just as she had before disappearing into the Upside Down over a year ago, she was about to telekinetically throw him across the room, launch him out of harm’s way. On instinct he caught her wrist on its way up, gripping it tight and thrusting it back down. She turned her head to look at him rapidly, a desperate and begging confusion in her eyes.  
  
“No,” Mike said, surprising himself with how stern and steady it sounded.  
  
“Mike—” Eleven said, her own voice high and tight with a wrenching combination of panic and questioning. Mike shook his head, loosening his grip on her wrist and sliding his fingers between her own, closing them around her small, soft hand. He held it tightly, and a hot, live current of love, affection, and, most importantly, inseparable oneness sparked tangibly within the walls of their mutual grip.  
  
“We do this together.”  
  
Eleven looked at him with an indescribable warmth in her eyes. Then, in mere seconds, her expression changed completely. She smiled at him, a smile that was subtle but not soft, not gentle, not quiet. A stormy darkness swept over her face, blooming darkly like spilled ink in her eyes. As he held her hand, Mike could feel a force within her grow and grow and grow at an incredible pace, her small body taking up an enormous presence in the room, conducting power like a beautiful, severe lightning rod, drawing it up, nearly overflowing with potential energy on the brink of combustion. To just touch her in this moment was a sensation more overwhelming than any Mike had ever experienced in his entire life. El turned her gaze back to the monster, who was practically upon them now, her confident, powerful, hurricane smile still plastered on her face. She squeezed Mike’s hand tight.  
  
“Together,” she whispered.


End file.
